Thursday, August 20, 2009

Gearing up for the next issue of The Big Takeover, so I thought I'd get this up before I'm swamped in review hell.

I had heard about Justin Melkmann through "Crazy" Glenn Wernig of the New York Waste, who suggested we connect because of our mutual love of GG Allin. We exchanged a few emails, but they went nowhere. Finally, I met Justin and his girlfriend (now wife) Trish at "Crazy" Glenn's house-warming party. They were super-cool people and I discovered that Justin also shares my love of Black Flag and old hardcore/punk rock as well. He worships Lou Reed, too!

Naturally, I got into Justin's band, World War IX. Unfortunately, the original singer was kind of a douchbag - one of those "trying-too-hard" types. When he split and Mike joined, it was a godsend - just what the band needed. Here's the review I wrote for BT 64:"This is a significant release in WWIX’s legacy in that it simultaneously announces the arrival of vocalist Mike and the departure of bassist Annick.If you ask me (and I’m assuming you are since you’re reading this), Mike is a far superior vocalist to Max.His gritty street punk voice works a lot better with the music than Max’s dopey monotone.It’s especially evident when comparing two old favorites of mine that appear here, “Treasure Hunt” and “Employee of the Month,” to their older versions.Really, there is no comparison; these are the definitive versions.WWIX include a CD of the songs with the 7”, which to me is a stroke of business genius and something more bands should do.The brown paper bag cover is a nice touch, too."

Hey, any band that combines Damaged-era Black Flag with GG Allin is A-OK in my book.

The images and music were uploaded with Justin Melkmann's consent. Thank you, Justin!

Monday, August 10, 2009

16 years ago today, Oystein Aarseth, aka Euronymous from Mayhem, was brutally stabbed to death by Varg Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh from Burzum.

I'm a fan of Varg's music, but I find him to be completely detestable as a person. It also really depresses me to think what a talented guitarist and song-writer Euronymous was, how great Mayhem were and how all that was taken away for the sake of Vikernes' ego.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I met Marc Mozga in English class my first year at CSUN. Somehow it came out in our first class that we were both film majors and we both liked David Lynch movies, so we started talking. Turned out, Marc was from the Minnesota Twin Cities and was heavily involved in the music scene there with a band called The Swingtones. Like me, he had a really eclectic taste in music, so we started hanging out. I believe he came with Aidan and I to see Thee Headcoates at Jabberjaw. We saw The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion a couple of times, too, and probably some more bands.

After a year or two in LA, Marc had had enough of LA, though he managed to bring The Swingtones around on tour and I hooked him up with a show at The Whiskey-A-Go-Go. I was there with my friend Mark Lovretovich and we sat there really amused by the bands that played before them. There was some really pretentious art-punk band that was trying desperately to be The Fall (and failing miserably) and this ridiculous Motley Crue/Poison-type LA glam band called 88 Crash, who really perplexed us - especially the bald, body-waxed singer who looked like some guy from Century City letting loose onstage. It was completely ridiculous. Finally, The Swingtones took the stage and it was a great show, they were all great guys and we had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, after Marc got sick of LA and moved back to the Midwest, we lost touch. He sent me a few really odd handmade tapes (to be posted here in the future), but I didn't hear much from him after that. Finally, he found me on MySpace a few years ago, but I'm not good at communicating on MySpace and we lost touch again. Oddly enough, he Googled "The Two Felipes" and found this blog a few months ago, and I haven't lost touch with him yet.

I Luv Luv Birds is his newest project with his girl, Holly Prindle. He plays stuff and she sings. It's indescribably great music. Although it's rooted in dub reggae a la The Mad Professor, there are elements of various modes of electronic music, including Cabaret Voltaire's early industrial, new styles 8-bit and glitch, and some sound collage aesthetics to keep it interesting. This is one bass-heavy, pulsing, psychedelic collection of music.

Ever read William Gibson's Neuromancer? This is the music that I imagine the Rasta space colony listened to.

Mysteries of Magnetism is ILLB's first release. It's mostly instrumental, but Holly comes in on the last track with a haunting vocal that would indicate where they'd go in the future.

I'm very happy to be posting this tape. It's an amazing collection of music.

The images and music were uploaded with Marc Mozga's consent. Thank you, Marc!

Monday, August 3, 2009

I went to high school with Atrox, but I didn't really get to know him until after I'd graduated. Some mutual friends brought me to his house to hang out one night, and Atrox made an immediate impression with his extremely high intelligence, left field philosophies and black metal obsession. Soon I was hanging out at his house all the time and we quickly bonded as friends.

I got a crash course in black metal from Atrox. While I didn't really get a lot of it at the time, Burzum and Mayhem with Dead stuck with me. When I completely immersed myself in black metal over a year ago, I remembered a lot of what he had taught me and I put it to good use.

Unfortunately, we also bonded over drugs and our respective psyches fueled each others' addictions to the point where our friendship completely dissolved.

Fortunately, I've recently reconnected with Atrox and he's the same great guy, minus the chemicals.

The images and music were uploaded with Atrox's consent. Thank you, Atrox!